Asymmetries in Gift-Exchange: The Role of Surprise When Wanting to Give/Receive Creative Gifts

In the dynamic of gift-exchange, consumers play two important roles: givers and recipients. When they play both roles, the literature on gift-exchange has found asymmetries where what givers value is different from what gift recipients want. Across three experiments, we tested associations between the importance given to surprise and the desire for creative gifts and the generation of ideas for creative gifts. In experiment 1, participants were assigned to the role of the giver or recipient and rated how important it was for gifts to be original, effective (two dimensions of a creative gift), and surprising. Results showed that participants assigned to the role of the giver rated the originality and effectiveness of gifts as more important than participants assigned to the role of the recipient. This relationship was mediated by the importance placed on surprise, suggesting that givers placed more emphasis on surprising the recipient than recipients did. In addition to rating the importance of attributes for gift-exchange, participants were asked to generate three gift ideas that matched what they thought was important when giving or receiving gifts. Two independent judges rated the creativity of the gifts generated. Participants assigned to the role of the giver generated more creative ideas for gifts than participants assigned to the role of the recipient, providing behavioral evidence for the important role of creative gifts. Experiment 2 was an independent replication with a sample of consumers of a different socio-economic status and found additional support for the role of surprise and creative gifts in gift-exchange. In experiment 3, participants were assigned to recall either the best gift they had ever given or an ordinary gift. Participants assigned to the best-gift-ever-given condition recalled gifts that were more creative, as rated by two independent judges, than participants assigned to the ordinary-gift-given condition. In addition, results showed that giving more creative gifts made givers feel better about themselves in the form of moral self-perception. This relationship was mediated by the emotional reactions perceived by the recipient of the gift as inferred by the giver. The implications of the results are discussed.